Who We Are

Campus Compact Overview

Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. We build democracy through civic education and community development.

We are a relationship-driven organization. We are a geographically distributed team headquartered in Boston, MA, with state and regional Campus Compacts supporting work on the ground across the country. As the only national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, Campus Compact enables campuses to develop students’ citizenship skills and forge effective community partnerships. Our resources support administrators, faculty, staff, and students as they pursue community-based teaching, scholarship, and action in the service of public good.

We are a values-driven organization. These core values are stated in our 30th Anniversary Action Statement and are reflective of our past work and current aspirations:

We empower our students, faculty, staff, and community partners to co-create mutually respectful partnerships in pursuit of a just, equitable, and sustainable future for communities beyond the campus—nearby and around the world.

We prepare our students for lives of engaged citizenship, with the motivation and capacity to deliberate, act, and lead in pursuit of the public good.

We embrace our responsibilities as place-based institutions, contributing to the health and strength of our communities—economically, socially, environmentally, educationally, and politically.

We harness the capacity of our institutions—through research, teaching, partnerships, and institutional practice—to challenge the prevailing social and economic inequalities that threaten our democratic future.

We foster an environment that consistently affirms the centrality of the public purposes of higher education by setting high expectations for members of the campus community to contribute to their achievement.